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Tuesday, April 24, 2007

“Life is Unfair!?” - Psalm 37

Elder Robert V's Sunday MessagePunchbowl Baptist Church22 April 2007

Introduction

Painful events happen to us without any valid explanations. They could range from major events such as the loss of a loved one, etc. to the ordinary day to day things when we feel that we have been unfairly treated.

Human instinct is to seek revenge - to return at least the same treatment as what we have received. The Old Testament seems to support this in Lev 24:19-20:

If anyone injures his neighbor, as he has done it shall be done to him, fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth; whatever injury he has given a person shall be given to him.

However, this was the Old Testament system to ensure that justice is served without any partiality; without favoring the rich or powerful.

The worst feeling is when the other party gets away with what they have done and leaves away unpunished. It’s a time when we feel like shouting ‘Life is unfair’!

Whether we agree or disagree with this statement depends on how we see life:

a) If we consider that the world and everything around us happens by chance or revolves around who is in power at any given time, then we can truly say that ‘Life is Unfair’. We can probably add that ‘Life is Hopeless’ and so therefore, ‘Help yourselves because no one else will’.

b) If we consider God to be in control of everything through his power, wisdom, and love, then we can be assured that ‘Life is as God wills it to be’!

Read Psalm 37-1-9 (NIV)

1 Do not fret because of evil men or be envious of those who do wrong; 2 for like the grass they will soon wither, like green plants they will soon die away.

3 Trust in the LORD and do good; dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture. 4 Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart.

5 Commit your way to the LORD trust in him and he will do this: 6 He will make your righteousness shine like the dawn, the justice of your cause like the noonday sun.

7 Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for him; do not fret l when men succeed in their ways, when they carry out their wicked schemes.

8 Refrain from anger o and turn from wrath; do not fret—it leads only to evil. 9 For evil men will be cut off, but those who hope in the LORD will inherit the land.

1. Instructions from the Psalm

Although there is no definite pattern in the Psalm, one can see that David, the author of this Psalm, aims to show the contrast between the wicked/evil men and the righteous/blameless.

The Psalm does not deny the reality of life’s seeming unfair events but confirm the fact that oftentimes-evil men prosper while the righteous ones suffer.

David also shows the final outcome of the wicked and the righteous. And so, he gives the reasons for his instructions to the righteous and the basis for living righteously.

1 Do not fret because of evil men or be envious of those who do wrong; 2 for like the grass they will soon wither, like green plants they will soon die away.

A. The opening verse is a straight to the point instruction. Both the words ‘fret’ and ‘envious’ are words that portray intensity. ‘Fret’ is described as ‘burning or heated anger’; ‘Envious’, which has the same intensity, is described as ‘jealousy with zeal’. In other words, David says, do not let your heart burn from jealousy and anger when evil men do you wrong. In verse 2, he somehow gives a comforting word that evil men are only as temporary as grass and so their wrongdoing will soon come to a stop.

Fret - charah (חָרָה, 2734), “to get angry, be angry.” This verb appears in the Bible 92 times. In the basic stem, the word refers to the “burning of anger” as in Jonah 4:1. In the causative stem, charah means “to become heated with work” or “with zeal for work” (Neh. 3:20). [1]

B. Verses 8-9 provides more substance to verses 1-2 in that David now gives further reasons why we should not fret and be envious of evil men.

8 Refrain from anger and turn from wrath; do not fret p —it leads only to evil. 9 For evil men will be cut off, but those who hope in the LORD will inherit the land.

1) Because feeding one’s heart with anger and jealousy only leads to evil. In doing so, the abused also becomes an abuser.

2) Because, aside from the temporary nature of evil men, they will also be cut off, meaning denied of anything good, in contrast to those who trust in the Lord who will receive their inheritance from God.

C. If verses 1-2 is the ‘what not to do when evil men do wrong and prosper’, verses 3-7 gives us the instructions of ‘what to do’. The believer’s life is not just characterized and confined by ‘not’ doing bad things, but is more motivated by ‘doing’ good things. And if we want to succeed in stopping envy and jealousy over the prosperity of the wicked, we have to focus more on these 4 things:

3 Trust in the LORD and do good; dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture. 4 Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart. 5 Commit your way to the LORD trust in him and he will do this: 6 He will make your righteousness shine like the dawn, the justice of your cause like the noonday sun. 7 Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for him; do not fret l when men succeed in their ways, m when they carry out their wicked schemes.

If the words ‘fret’ and ‘envious’ signify evil intensity, the words in this group of verses signify godly intensity. In addition, while the description of the words ‘fret’ and ‘envious’ looks inwardly and feeds the heart with anger and bitterness which further leads to evil, the words in this group of verses all look outwardly and seeks the Lord.

1) Ps 37:3 Trust in the LORD and do good; dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture.

Ø The word ‘trust’ figuratively means to be boldly confident to the point of carelessness. This is total trust in the Lord.

4) Ps 37:4 Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart.

Ø This may be the greatest antidote that is available to us to ward off the evils of anger and jealousy over the wicked. This is the refreshing water that cools down the heart. It is when we fill our hearts with delight in the Lord that anger and jealousy will have no more place to stay.

Ø Further, this defines the true believer from the false ones. The true believer delights in God n the midst of his or her trials in life. It is his or her delight in God that makes the journey a joyful, instead of a painful one.

Ø May I also suggest that the motivation for us in trusting the Lord, committing our every care to him, and truly resting in him is because we delight in him.

2. Guarantees from the Psalm

ð The purpose of David’s instructions is 2-fold:i) To take away the burden from us once we start feeling angry about our situations and leave the judging and avenging part to God.

ii) To make us more godly rather than turning into the same evil as the wicked.ð The Lord is our Judge and he knows best when and how the sentence is carried, whatever that may be.

ð Evidence of this comes from the following:

I. Through the testimony of David (& God’s children)…

25 I was young and now I am old, yet I have never seen the righteous forsaken or their children begging bread. 26 They are always generous and lend freely; their children will be blessed.

35 I have seen a wicked and ruthless man flourishing n like a green tree in its native soil, 36 but he soon passed away and was no more; though I looked for him, he could not be found.

ð David is a great example of what he wrote in this Psalm. Even after knowing that he was the anointed king, he never forced himself to be king while Saul was still the King over Israel. David always said that he would not touch the Lord’s anointed. In due time, the Lord rewarded David of the kingship he was promised.

In the same way, if we trust the Lord as David did, the Lord will see us through our trials. I am confident that the Lord has delivered you out of trying situations and have given you justice in due time. This is not a one-off thing but should be our way of life – trusting God!

II. …that is made real through God’s promise

Notice that when you read the whole Psalm, it is literally the Lord who takes care of those who trust in him and is summarized in the concluding verses of the Psalm:

39 The salvation of the righteous comes from the LORD, he is their stronghold in time of trouble. 40 The LORD helps them and delivers them; he delivers them from the wicked and saves them, because they take refuge in him.

ð The Psalm does not teach us to escape our situation but to go through it by God’s power.

ð It is not those who help themselves that God helps but those who take refuge in him.3. Summary - Is Life really unfair?

There are several implications when we say, ‘Life is unfair!’

1) We do not believe that God is in control of everything2) We do not believe that God can be trusted3) We do not believe that God cares4) We do not believe in the testimony of David5) In other words, we rather believe what our hearts tell us6) We believe that evil men are more powerful than God7) Therefore, we might as well believe that God is not truly God.

The next time we are tempted to say, ‘Life is unfair!’, take time to think if we are being fair at all in believing that life is unfair. If we call ourselves children of God, shame on us.

Instead, we should always say, ‘Life is what the Lord wills it to be’, and because we trust him, then, ‘Life is the way it should be’ – because if we do it right like David, the ‘unfair’ situation can turn into an opportunity to be Christ-like and to remind ourselves of our many blessings.

[2]Strong, J. 1996. The exhaustive concordance of the Bible : Showing every word of the test of the common English version of the canonical books, and every occurence of each word in regular order. (electronic ed.) . Woodside Bible Fellowship.: Ontario

v v: verbTWOT Theological Wordbook of the Old TestamentGK Goodrick-KohlenbergerAV Authorized Version

[4]Strong, J. 1996. The exhaustive concordance of the Bible : Showing every word of the test of the common English version of the canonical books, and every occurence of each word in regular order. (electronic ed.) . Woodside Bible Fellowship.: Ontario